Economics, philosophy.
Theatre of Envy
Joined May 2018
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J. retweeted
We've already spent more than 2x on Iran, including the damage to bases and cost of rearmament than we have sent to the Ukraine
J. retweeted
Yields were suppressed this morning, with the 10-year falling below 5.2%, allowing for equities to get off the mat and follow-through. However, they've reversed intraday and are now up, again, materially. 10-year yield was down 5 basis points yesterday, which opened the door for this rally. Now it's up 6 basis points today, almost back to 5.3%, and equities are fading from the highs.
Impressive bounce this week for many risk-on names, but where do we go from here? Well, yields will have to settle in order to allow a *trending regime* to form. You will still have the crowd that says they don't matter, but that's simply not true. They absolutely still matter, in spite of equities whistling past them (for now). The pace & directionality of yields pose a repricing threat to forward expectations for risk assets, and they also put pressure on debt-driven capex, which has been the lifeblood of this economy. This morning's soft jobs data wasn't enough to keep yields down, which means that bond vigilantes are still looking for more resolution, in other places.
The Treasury buybacks haven't worked either, and so logically, the only other potential catalyst on the table is, once again (and I know I sound like a broken record here), ending the war in Iran. If President Trump wants a clearer market backdrop, with less intraday fades and less week-to-week volatility, he will have to get this done. The sooner, the better.
J. retweeted
Regardless of your geopolitical opinion about the war in Iran, there is zero question that it has been the most acute contributor to higher real rates this year. The Fed hasn't hiked, and yet the 2-Year yield is nearly a full percentage point higher, and yields are up materially across the curve.
Rather calling on Bessent and the Treasury to intervene at the long-end with buybacks (which would only be a short-term solution, and would set a dangerous precedent for bond market interference), the White House needs to recognize that ending the war in Iran is the only easily accessible kill-switch for bond vigilante enthusiasm, and is of paramount importance to sustainably reverse the direction of yields/rates.
J. retweeted
The Declaration of Independence is the greatest document ever produced by man. It’s no coincidence that it was the founding document of our nation and we went on to be the most prosperous civilization in human history. Any country founded on that document is worth loving and fighting to save.
It is also, undeniably, a radically libertarian document that clearly states the validity of natural God given rights and that the only legitimate role for government is the protection of liberty.
We have serious problems in our country today and we will be much better off if we follow the spirit of our founding document than the brain dead varying socialisms being promoted by both political parties.
J. retweeted
Megacaps:
You are slowly starting to see signs that megacaps can’t afford to fund the AI trade anymore
First with their actions: raising debt, in some cases diluting and now passing on prices to customers
And then with their words: Apple slated MU today, Microsoft said they can’t afford memory so have to push prices up. Google, meta and Amazon have not said anything yet.
It’s going to be very interesting how this plays out
J. retweeted
there's a real shift happening here from the petrol dollar to the mag7-dollar. $150k a year was worth 1500 meta shares in 2015 but only 250ish today. you can really only think about your p&l in these terms, they will inflate the dollar to 0 as they replace the reserve currency
J. retweeted
Keir Starmer's successor, whoever that will be, will fail just like he did.
The United Kingdom is ungovernable at this point because the elected government no longer controls the state apparatus. The unholy blob that Tony Blair constructed runs everything, and they answer to no one. Starmer himself literally said that he pulls a lever and nothing happens. His replacement will find those levers still do nothing.
Without a massive purge of the NGOs, the Quangos, the courts, the civil service, and the administrative state, changing Prime Ministers will do about as much good as swapping out a kid's steering-wheel toy in a car that's hurdling off a cliff.
J. retweeted
After interviewing dozens of leading AI experts and reading hundreds of books, these 4 books stood out as the most important for the AI-age. If you truly understand their insights, not only will you survive this revolution, you will thrive.
1. Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic
2. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
3. Rene Girard’s Deceit Desire and the Novel
4. Jeff Kripal’s Secret Body
People today are mostly worried about AI taking their job or the bubble bursting, but Weber’s Protestant Ethic is going to show you the problem is much greater. The right comparison isn't the dotcom bubble or 2008. It’s Darwin which shook the faith of an entire civilization or the industrial revolution which required two world wars to sort out. That's the scale of the AI challenge and Weber’s text helps put that in view.
The next 3 books will teach you where to spend your time now in order to thrive in this radically new world order. I've already made major life decisions based on their insights to AI-proof my life and career. Why should we go looking for guidance in “outdated” works of philosophy? Because we need to rethink everything from the ground up from first principles. And if you are just stuck on learning how to prompt engineer or following the latest fads on X you are underestimating the size of the earthquake that is about to hit us by magnitudes.
These are the crucial insights each of these 4 texts have to offer us in the AI age…
Timestamps:
0:00 0. Introduction
1:42 1. Weber’s Protestant Ethic
5:41 2. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
9:48 3. Girard’s Deceit Desire and the Novel
14:25 4. Kripal’s Secret Body
J. retweeted
My opinion is that Mythos is the current best model but not actually some world-changing dangerous model, and that anthropic did their usual song and dance about safety largely because they didn’t have enough compute to serve it at scale
So then they launched Fable because they still have to think about the IPO, but they are still somewhat compute limited so they put all sorts of restrictions on it
Around the same time, because they are trying to get regulatory capture and not because things are actually dangerous, Dario did more scaremongering and published his honestly confusing white paper that offered no real solutions
So finally they succeeded, they managed to freak out the government, their cynical plan backfired, and now it’s a giant pain in the ass
J. retweeted
I don’t think any of you understand what is about to happen in the market. We are about to live through the craziest five year run in technocapital history. God help us all. I pray that when Judgement comes He can see all that we did to ensure efficient price discovery.
J. retweeted
This is a much needed policy.
Large scale landlord shouldnt be able to buy hundreds of properties with boomber capital and turn us into a renter class that never owns anything.
Young people need a fair shot at home ownership and the building of equity overtime it can bestow on people.
We need to disincentivize corps from buying but also incentivize building and renovating for the average family.
J. retweeted
This is the Axios "journalist" behind the recent 5 reports of an impending Iran deal. He's an Israeli citizen and former IDF cyberwarfare Unit 8200 member. David Ravid. Coordination with BOJ and US Treasury to rig oil markets lower and stocks higher.
J. retweeted
+53.52% since Altius Research note was sent out. $velo
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